The Lesser of Two Evils
by Scarlet Secret
Summary: After the series finale. Sarah met him in the yard three nights later.


A/N: I should be writing Nano but...nahhhhh! For all those who were traumatised by the breaking down of Team O'Barrow.

* * *

Sarah met him in the yard three nights later. It wasn't easy and it wasn't comfortable but she forced herself into the yard by the sheer force of how much she needed a cigarette. He was sat at the bench they'd always used before, three butts in the little glass he was using as an ashtray and the glorious smell of smoke hovering around him, so familiar that it nearly made her cry. He didn't pick it up and throw it at her, which was a good start.

Silently she took the seat opposite him, sitting sideways and facing the wall, not looking at him properly but not turning her back to him. Even in her darkest moments Sarah didn't think she would ever have been able to turn her back on him. She'd heard the others talking, Ivy and Daisy wittering on about how unfortunate it was that he wasn't getting a reference, then Mrs Patmore's wry amusement that Mr Carson was getting the pre-war staff he had always wanted and then Mrs Hughes talking sympathetically about the state she'd found him in. She closed her eyes as she groped for the matches on the table only to have him pull them away at the last minute; she breathed deeply and searched her own pockets till she found her packet and lit it with a shaking hand, thankfully not one that was so bad he'd be able to tell.

They didn't speak, but they didn't move either, one cigarette, then another, until the glass was becoming full of blackened ends and was smoking itself with the residue they'd left behind. She hadn't smoked like this in an age, not with such desperation and not until she was beginning to feel her throat clog with the denseness of the smoke. She didn't care.

"I suppose you expect an apology?"

"I don't expect_ anything_ from you Miss O'Brien."

She lowered her head and nodded vaguely; she'd expected that, the coldness, the directness. There wasn't dislike in his tones, nor was their gloating of the like she'd already seen in Bates' face and it reminded her why she'd liked Thomas in the first place. It probably wasn't enough though. She doubted anything on this earth could remind him why he'd liked her. She lit another cigarette and watched as he began to do the same, reaching for his matches and shaking the box with a small frown, finding none there; he checked his pockets and still found nothing.

"Give them here."

"What?" She looked at him then, in the same moment he deigned to look at her and she saw the red-rimmed eyes for the first time. He was safe, but he wasn't comfortable and chances were that he never would be again. Not here, not where everyone knew his secret for sure. Did he know, she wondered, that Lord Grantham had kept him on for the sake of a cricket match? Her ladyship had told her, brimming with eye-rolling mirth at the very thought, but blissfully unaware of the real situation and only noticing that something was wrong at all when Sarah's grip on one of her combs had broken it in two – she hadn't minded, Cora seldom minded anything these days and after Sybil had taken on an appreciation for the people in her life she still had. It served Sarah's purposes if nothing else.

"The matches."

"I've been sat right here, you'd have seen me if I'd had them. You must have used them all," she pushed hers closer to him. "Here. I wouldn't leave you without would I?"

He snorted, utterly unamused, but took them all the same and lit up.

"It's your last."

"No matter. I'll light my next one off yours."

He nodded. It was an old practice of theirs when they were coming to the end of the pay quarter and money was tight. Matches didn't cost much but it was easier to pool their resources and save as much as possible for cigarettes and despite all that had happened since the easier days before the war – perhaps because of them, she mused – routines that saved funds were still worth doing. She smoked quickly, not putting it past him to put his own out and leave her high and dry and not entirely sure that she would blame him if he did and by the time she was picking another from the packet he was ready to pass over his.

"I'll do the same after you."

"Right you are."

She looked away from him for the first time, letting her feelings get the better of her and not acting with the bravado she felt she ought to have in this moment.

"How are we all to sit now? We've never had an underbutler before."

"I expect they'll move you down one."

She nodded: moving a place at the table was hardly life-changing.

"That'll be odd. I've sat there for sixteen years."

"I know you have."

She drew deeply on the cigarette for something to do and watched him out of the corner of her eye when he turned to her expectantly and she handed over the half-finished cigarette for him to use as a lighter, taking it back once he was done and feeling, momentarily, the tips of his fingers brush against hers. He snorted.

"You going to report that now are you? Make them think I'm a proper deviant goin' after anything I can."

"Of course I'm not!" She hissed and gritted her teeth, breathing the smoke sharply out of the corner of her lips.

"Only I don't think I'm ever going to be able to be around you again now and not wonder what you've got up your sleeve."

"I shouldn't worry," she spoke sadly, and it made her sadder to think of how sharply she might have once barked out her rebuttal, even to him. "You've got Bates in your corner now haven't you? Practically part of the golden squad."

"He helped me."

"Oh," she looked at him pointedly, shades of her usual attitude seeping through. "And I suppose I've never helped you? Not to be first footman, and then get rid of obstacles? Or get you out of trouble and away from some horrible hospital in the middle of nowhere?"

"You make it sound like I _owe _you." He grimaced and shook his head in adamant irritation.

"You bloody well did owe me and when I tried to call the favour in you weren't interested."

"And that called for settin' me up did it?!"

His eyes bore into hers now and were it not for the lights still on in the house that could mean anyone was watching she thought he might have gone for her there and then. She couldn't say she blamed him.

"No," she turned her head away, feeling spikes of shame again. "No, it didn't call for that." Gritting her teeth she met his gaze again, unafraid of the malice still there. "But you started it."

"Jesus, we're not in the schoolyard anymore y'know?"

"No? Then why start on Alfred? When it was Bates or William I could understand, they were in your way, but Alfred was nothing to you and you still couldn't resist could you?"

"So what if I couldn't?"

She smirked, satisfied she'd got him into a corner now as he looked away, trying not to give himself away and yet with the look of a man who knew he already had.

"Well neither could I. Its nature isn't it? To pick on those stupider than ourselves."

He looked at her sharply and she smiled, nastily as ever, the sort he was used to rather than the altogether softer demeanour that her ladyship would expect and despite the horrible situation, she felt more herself than she had all year. So what if he knew about the soap and now Bates did? The Countess of Grantham still danced to _her _tune and a few tears and an explanation that she'd always felt like it was her fault for not doing her duty well enough would soon have Cora cooing and firmly on her side.

"You never change do you?"

She breathed the smoke out through her nose as she snorted lightly with amusement.

"As if you do. At least I learn. You tried to blackmail the Duke of Crowborough and that got you nowhere and now you've got Bates doing it to me for your sake. For shame lad," she pulled the cigarette from his fingers to light her next one. "I might be a wicked old cow but at least I'm not Bates."

"He-"

"Helped you. I know. So now you and him are going to be best friends I suppose," she cocked her head to the side. "Go to their cottage for tea and gossip will you?"

"Will I heck. He might have helped me but did you see the look on his face when Mr Carson told everyone I was stayin'?" For the first time he managed the sort of nasty smile she was used to. "It was almost as good as yours."

She stared him down, willing him to look away first and when he didn't she cut her losses and laughed humourlessly. There was a suddenly evident path available to her when she thought she'd been utterly stuck in a corner with no way out – it was just a matter of moving everything into place now and she was good at that if nothing else.

"I can imagine," she spoke lightly, fiddling with her cigarette rather than smoking it for the time being. "I don't mind now though-"

"That's big of you."

"No," she ignored the interruption. "I don't mind because you've played your hand now and I know for a fact you've got nothing else."

"It's a good hand though."

"Not anymore. It threw me to begin with, I won't lie about that, but I've had chance to think it through now and it's not much of a position. If you do say anything then chances are they won't believe you and it looks a bit fishy doesn't it? You suddenly developing a conscience over something William had to punch you for being callous about…no, they won't believe a word of it."

Thomas' face was blank and she knew, just as sure as she knew why her own face was the same, that he was thinking rapidly of a way to turn it to his advantage. Sadly for him, she'd always been a bit quicker.

"So we're at a stalemate are we Miss O'Brien?"

"You could call it that."

"What would you call it?" He shuffled in his seat and met her eyes with intrigue and she knew she had him.

"Let's call it a draw."

He laughed at that.

"A draw? This wasn't a bloody game!"

"Maybe not, but with Bates gone we had to keep our wits warm somehow didn't we?" It was a gambit, it might go horribly wrong, he could storm off never to speak to her again, he could go straight to Mr Carson and call her bluff, he could inform Bates that old enemies had long memories but Thomas did none of these things. He furrowed his brow curiously and drew on his cigarette casually.

"You want me on your side again don't you?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because of _everything_ that's bloody happened! How do you expect me to trust someone that could do that to me?"

"I don't expect anything," she got to her feet at long last, passing him the cigarette so he could smoke in peace from now on. "You never really trusted me to begin with-"

"Of course I did!"

"Then you were dafter than I thought. You don't have to trust me, but Bates isn't happy, I'm not happy and neither are you. If things start again then it'll be last-in-first-out as far as Mr Carson is concerned and you'll need someone fighting your corner. It's up to you whether it's me or Bates."

She left him before he could retort, re-entering the house with smoke still swirling around her, prompting even Alfred to look at her twice as though he couldn't quite believe how thickly she smelt of it. She took her seat – her new seat, she reminded herself as she took the other chair instead, making Mr Carson furrow his brow at her – and waited for Thomas to come in. When he did she was the first to get to her feet, making the hall-boys laugh until she shot them a look and they followed suit, more scared of Miss O'Brien's displeasure than they were of looking stupid and everyone else soon followed suit, even Anna and Bates she was pleased to notice.

Thomas caught her eye as he passed a silent word to Mr Carson and after a brusque nod from the butler – about something Sarah was sure was utterly immaterial but designed to keep everyone else on their feet as long as possible – Thomas took the vacated seat next to her and they all sat again.

"Mr Bates, could you fetch the wine for us this evening. Mr Carson's put me in charge of that cupboard temporarily. I think the '84, don't you Miss O'Brien?"

"I think so Mr Barrow. It's a special occasion after all."

Every eye at the table was staring at them in mingled disgust, shock and confusion. Sarah's heart sang.


End file.
